Claiming His Brother's Baby

“I thought you were sweet and gentle.”

She sucked in a shallow breath. His words stilled in the air between them. Sweet and gentle? Is that how he saw her? Not lonely and guarded and desperate to keep her distance?

“Is that who Doug said I was?”

He didn’t respond immediately. “Yeah, of course he did.”

Cassie ignored the stab of guilt, grabbed the tweezers and extracted the barb. “All done,” she said and stepped back.

Tanner turned and she was faced with the solid wall of chest. She noticed a long faded scar below his rib cage, but other than that there was nothing imperfect about him. Her belly swayed and she got mad with herself. Being attracted to Tanner was out of the question.

Perhaps one day she’d find someone to share her life—a friend, a lover, a husband. Someone who she could love and who would welcome the role as father to her son. But not yet. She wasn’t ready. And she certainly had no intention of paying too much attention to the burgeoning attraction she had for the man in front of her.

Still, it was easy to get drawn into the warm depths of his liquid brown eyes. Easier still to stare at his broad shoulders and satin-smooth skin. Heat crept over her skin. Maybe I have a fever? Yes, that had to be it. She was unwell. Out of sorts. It had nothing to do with his brown eyes and broad shoulders.

“Cassie?”

His voice brought her stare upward and she locked his gaze as the air flamed, swirling up as it coiled around them. And suddenly she couldn’t pretend it was anything other than raw attraction. Chemistry. Undeniable and absolutely unwanted.

And from nowhere, a sudden memory kicked in. She’d felt it once before, long ago. She’d all but forgotten that hot summer when she was thirteen. She recalled the boy who’d captured her attention on the beach one late afternoon. Her first crush. Her first kiss. The fluttering in her belly caused a familiar rush and she quickly pushed the memory away.

“I should check Oliver,” she said on a shallow breath.

A car pulled out outside.

“Our pizza,” Tanner said and grabbed his shirt off the table. “Thanks for the first aid. I’ll be back with our dinner.”

He walked from the room and Cassie stared after him. Being around Tanner was a mistake. Maybe the biggest of her life.

Chapter Four

Tanner sensed the change in Cassie’s mood the moment she returned to the kitchen. He couldn’t miss the tension in her expression as they ate and afterward when she refused his offer to help clean up. Uncomfortable by the sudden awkwardness, he left her alone for a while. The awareness between them was hard to deny and he wondered if she realized he was attracted to her and that’s why she seemed so closed off. He headed back to the guest room and packed his bag and dropped it in the hallway. Tanner was in the living room looking at the photographs on the mantel when she came into the room some twenty minutes later.

“Everything all right?” he asked and propped the photo of Doug back on the shelf.

“Fine,” she replied and pointed to the photograph. “That was taken years ago. I don’t have anything current, in case you wanted a copy.”

“I have photos,” he said and turned. “But thanks.”

She nodded. “I also have Doug’s things stored away in the spare room. You’re welcome to go through the boxes and see if there’s anything you’d like to keep.”

“Won’t you want those as keepsakes for his son?”

“I’ve selected a few things already. And I have several videos Doug made while he was on tour. Oliver will know his father.”

He heard the dig and wondered why she was so tense. It’s not as if she owed him any explanations—about anything. “You know, not every conversation we have has to be a battle.”

Her eyes flashed brilliantly. “I don’t—”

“You act like I’m the enemy.”

She crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “Can you blame me?”

He wasn’t sure what she was getting at and shrugged. “Which means?”

“I’ve been in limbo for months, Tanner. Maybe I did shove my head in the sand when it came to the house and Doug’s estate, but that doesn’t make me any less shocked that you’ve turned up and now I’m faced with the prospect of leaving the only home I’ve known since I was a young girl.”

Tanner’s insides contracted. “I didn’t come here to make things harder for you,” he assured her. “On the contrary...”

Her brows came up. “Do you think your being here would make things easier?” She shook her head. “The fact is, you’re a walking, talking reminder of exactly how much my life is about to change.”

Of course he would be. So the sooner he did what he had come to do and then got back to his own life, the better.

“I have no intention of disrupting your life.”

“Do I seem so naive to you, Tanner?” She took a couple of steps farther into the room and seemed to waver on her feet. “Your very presence is a disruption.”

She wanted him gone...that was evident enough. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Cassie. Be assured that as soon as I have the estate sorted I’ll be returning to South Dakota. But as I said yesterday, Oliver is my nephew, the only family I have, and I’d like to play some role in his life.”

“As what?” she asked quietly. “The absent uncle?”

Tanner pushed back the irritation weaving through his blood. Obstinate, infuriating woman. “I’m here now. And I’d like to stay in contact once I go home. It’s what Doug would have wanted.”

Her brows came up. “Is it?” She paled and an uneasy silence filled the room. When she spoke again her voice was unusually raspy. “Are you sure about that? You and Doug weren’t exactly close.”

“Things between us improved these last few years.”

There was some truth in his words. His brother had tried, in his way, to mend their broken relationship. And Tanner had cautiously let him back into his life. He’d returned to Crystal Point on two occasions to see Doug and his brother had briefly visited his ranch in Cedar Creek six months before his death.

She raised her chin. “He never did tell me why you were estranged.”

Tanner’s stomach tightened. “It was a misunderstanding that happened years ago.”

“Really?” Her brows came up. “What kind of misunderstanding?”

He shrugged. Tanner had no intention of telling her about Leah or the money or anything else from his past. “It doesn’t matter now.”

She raised her chin in that stiff, determined way he was getting used to. “So you won’t tell me?”

“No.”

She laughed, the sound brittle in the room. “Well, Doug did say you had a stubborn, unforgiving streak.”

He tensed. Of course his brother would have said that. Doug wasn’t one to take responsibility for his actions or his mistakes.

Her expression narrowed. “What was your relationship like when you were kids?”

“Good,” he replied truthfully. “But with twelve years between us we were never really kids together.”

She nodded. “You said Doug joined the army at twenty-one and sent you to boarding school?”

“That’s right.” He named the school that was about two hundred miles west of Bellandale.

“Were you happy there?”

It seemed an odd question. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

She pushed on. “You’d just lost your parents, correct? Why do you think Doug made the decision to send you away when you were so young?”

“He joined the army,” Tanner said. “I guess he did what he thought was the best thing at the time.”

Cassie didn’t look completely convinced. “But what did you think?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it tightly shut. She stared at him, looking intrigued and a little confused. He drew in a slow breath. “I thought... I suppose I thought I’d been abandoned.”

“Did you ever tell him that?”

Silence stretched like elastic for a moment. Finally, he spoke. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that.”

“Then thank you,” she said. “For not dismissing the question. I suppose I’m trying to understand why Doug would have done such a thing. I mean, you really only had each other.”

“What twenty-one-year-old wants to be saddled with a kid? Especially someone like...”

Tanner stopped when he saw her expression shift. He met her gaze and waited for her to speak.

“You mean, someone like Doug?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper. When he didn’t respond she spoke again. “You know, don’t you?”

Tanner shrugged a little. “I know what?”

“You know Doug wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of having a baby?”

Wasn’t exactly thrilled? His brother had flat-out said kids weren’t in his plans—ever.

“I know he had some reservations.”

She shrugged and maintained her resilient look. “It was a shock, that’s all. We’d never talked about children and when I found out I was pregnant I was surprised at first. When I told Doug, he didn’t...well, he wasn’t happy about it.”

He knew the story. Doug had no intention of ever being a father to his child and Tanner knew his brother would have told Cassie that very thing had he lived.

“I’m sure it was the shock, like you said.”

As he said the words and tasted the lie, Tanner knew he had to keep the truth from her. It would hurt her deeply if the truth ever came out.

“I suppose we’ll never know,” she said, softer still.

Tanner shrugged fractionally. “I should get going.”

“Are you heading into Bellandale?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “I’m going to crash at Ruthie’s for a few days. But I’d like to drop by tomorrow afternoon to see Oliver if that’s okay?”

“Of course.”

“Good night, Cassie. I’ll see myself out.”

She nodded and watched him leave. Tanner grabbed his bag from the hall and headed through the front door and realized that leaving was the last thing he wanted to do.

* * *

When Cassie sat up in bed at six the next morning she knew the headache and scratchy throat she’d been harboring for days had finally taken hold. But Oliver’s cries made her ignore her pains, push back the covers and roll off the mattress. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, took a couple of aspirin and worked through her sluggishness. It was well past the half hour by the time she’d fed him and then made herself some soothing peppermint tea.

But Oliver was unsettled for most of the morning and in between doing two loads of washing and putting a casserole in the slow cooker, she took him for a long walk. When she got home it was after three and she gave him a bath and a bottle before putting him to bed for a nap.

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